Daily chess puzzle

Source: unknown game, position given in Jacob Aagaard’s ‘Excelling at chess’.

Solution

I recently attended a brilliant weekend of three training sessions with Jacob Aagaard. Before the weekend, I had read his latest book ‘Thinking inside the box’ and thoroughly enjoyed it.

Since the course, I resolved to read all his instructional books, all of which have been lying on my shelves, many for some years. Jacob was a wonderful trainer in person, with the knack of explaining things, and I am expecting the same from his books.

Firstly, I am reading his 2001 book, Excelling at Chess, from which this puzzle is taken (page 74).

After several sessions of trying to solve it- actually mirroring how Jacob said he solved it-by failing to find a win after 1…Qc2+ 2Kc2 Nd4+ 3 Kd1 (there isn’t a win there: e.g. Nb2+ or Re1+ don’t work) I eventually reversed the moves and found 1…Re1+!! when everything fits into place. 2 Re1[] Qc2+! now works. 3 Kc2 Nd4+ 4 Kd1 now loses to 4…Nb2 mate, the Rook occupying e1, so instead 4 Kb1 when 4…Nc3+ leads to a pretty smothered mate.